God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
With thanks to Peter Bennett for his professional support.
Thanks to Brunina, Eva and Caroline, my best girlfriends.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Epigraph
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1: Goodbye
Chapter 2: Copenhagen to Catwalk
Chapter 3: The Homing Pigeon Who Didn’t Come Back
Chapter 4: A Giraffe in Designer Clothes
Chapter 5: An Educational Experiment
Chapter 6: Out in the World
Chapter 7: Alone in the City of Love
Chapter 8: Life at the Top
Chapter 9: And the Stones Played in the Background
Chapter 10: Red Sonja
Chapter 11: A Coincidence
Chapter 12: Beverly Hills Cop II
Chapter 13: A Very Public Divorce
Chapter 14: Italian Superstar
Chapter 15: Leaving Arizona
Chapter 16: My True Friends
Chapter 17: The Perfect Family
Chapter 18: Big Dreams
Chapter 19: ‘The Show Must Go On’
Chapter 20: A New Day
Chapter 21: Slow Awakenings
Chapter 22: The Escape
Chapter 23: Comeback to Reality
Chapter 24: Detox and Rehab
Chapter 25: The Last Hurdle
Chapter 26: We Love You, Mum
Plates
Copyright
PROLOGUE
You’ve probably seen me in movies or on TV, or read about me in the media. Never mind a book – you could fill an entire library with what other people have said about me. And when I was young, I used to follow it all. I loved it when I read the good stuff but the criticism always got to me so in the end I decided to live my life to the full and not worry about what anyone else thought.
It’s been an incredible ride for someone like me who started off as a little girl in an unremarkable suburb of north Copenhagen. It’s been hectic and full of wonderful experiences but like anyone else I have also had my share of surprises. We all know those moments… when things change and your life takes an unexpected turn. It might be sickness or the loss of loved ones or it could be something amazingly good.
The defining moment in my life came on an afternoon in 1978 when a woman I had never met before tapped me on the shoulder in the street and introduced me to a glamorous existence I could barely have imagined, let alone dream I might inhabit. Me, a skinny, freakishly tall outcast of a teenager – but I became an overnight sensation: a supermodel living out the red carpet dream. I grew up and have lived the rest of my life in public – whether or not I have wanted to have everything on display. That’s just the way it is when the cameras roll: you just have to be there. And that’s how it was for me as the entertainer, the diva, the blonde – Brigitte with the long legs and the big breasts. She was an overnight success and a completely different person from who I used to be – shy, insecure, gawky Gitte from Rødovre in Denmark. It seemed like a fairy tale when I was chosen and I was just too young to know that there was always going to be a price to pay.
Everyone talked about my jet-set lifestyle and a string of very public relationships but with each lurid headline, I became more lonely – I didn’t recognise the person I read about. I compromised who I really was with make-up, a big, open Danish smile and designer clothes. Today I know that I gave away too much of myself to pay for my travels in a world where the men and the media could never have enough from me. I cared so much about their opinions. There were too many occasions when I was not faithful to my true nature and times when I was cheated by those closest to me. In the end, it almost cost me my life.
On my 40th birthday I saw it all so clearly: my existence was no longer bearable. My bubbly, energetic and trusting soul had been all but wiped out, but although there seemed to be only one way out for me at the time I realise now that those experiences, good and bad, have made me who I am today – Gitte Nielsen, not Brigitte. In other words, the person I always used to be happy about being and who I am once again unconditionally proud to be.
I don’t know why so many long years had to pass before I finally accepted myself for who I am, rather than seeing myself as the world saw me, but these days I’ve definitely got my priorities right: first a mother, then a wife and then comes work. I still give my best, but I know what’s more important.
When I finally decided to tell my story, I knew I would have to open my heart and show the whole world who Gitte Nielsen really is – and she’s very different from the confident sex symbol given the name ‘Brigitte’ by a Hollywood movie mogul who decided that ‘Gitte’ didn’t work in films. Gitte didn’t sound like a star, people wouldn’t even know the Danish way of saying it – ‘Ghee-tah’ – and she has been lost inside Brigitte for too long. Being Gitte always seemed safe, whereas Brigitte was the dangerous, exciting one. Being Brigitte was the cause of all my trouble.
My friends told me I should let everyone know what I am really like, and it’s not what you read in the gossip pages. My story, what really happened to me, could have happened to anyone: we all row the same boat. You may even recognise yourself in me. And you may see your story in my adventures – after all, we Danes know all about fairy tales! Hans Christian Andersen wrote some of the best; remember the ugly duckling who grew into the beautiful, long-necked swan? But the Danes also gave the world the Viking – the most feared warrior of them all – even if it was the Victorians who invented the detail of the horned helmet. You’ll find me somewhere between those three points – warrior, graceful swan and, paddling hard to keep up, the ugly duckling, dreaming of being accepted, happy and loved.
I had two cousins who always had long blonde hair and blue eyes, while I was stuck with light brown hair and an endless parade of cold-sores on my lips. My grandmother was the only one who saw anything in the way I looked. She would take my face in her cool hands and smooth my hair back gently. ‘Look at this elegant forehead,’ she whispered to me. ‘You’re going to be beautiful.’
Tell my classmates that. I was bullied mercilessly for my height and my skinniness. I changed schools seven times and I was always very lonely. My academic record was great but I was always the last to be picked for any games and unlike the other girls, I never got love letters. You never forget those years. When I became successful it was the turn of the press to keep me under pressure: they wanted to know every detail about my relationships with the brutal guys I frequently seemed to end up with. It hurt me just as much as any of the taunts at school.
You have to fight for your own happiness, that’s what I know now. You’re the only one in charge of your life. Happiness won’t come easily and you really have to think hard about how you do things.
I think my story will move a lot of people. Some people will be surprised, and others will be upset. Some will ask, ‘Who does she think she is?’ But that’s how it is when you tell the truth. The only person I know for sure will be proud is my dad. He died when he was very young and when he looks down, he’ll smile – and I’ll be smiling back. Dad knew the truth can hurt but that you have to face things without flinching. I’m not really religious myself, except in as much as I believe there is a god who lives on in all of us – that is the divine in everyone, a force for good.
Looking back on my first 47 years I think of the Danish girl who grew up in the west side of ‘60s Copenhagen. She was a powerful thing with an appetite for life and she went looking for experiences that most girls would never even dr
eam of. As Brigitte, life has been fun and fantastic, and I took a lot of chances along the way – probably more than I should have. Mostly, I got away with it pretty much unscathed. I’d always leap into the unknown, dive headlong into swimming pools in my life without checking if there was water in them first. Even though I don’t believe in an actual god, somebody somewhere was watching me. I got away with doing things that, by rights, should have killed me.
I’d like to thank everyone who has been involved in this book and who has helped me. Most of all my fantastic father and Mattia Dessi, my husband, who saved me from the bottle and is the reason why today I am clear and full of energy. And of course my kids, Julian, Killian, Douglas and Raoulino. I love you so much.
Gitte Nielsen
London, May 2011
CHAPTER 1
GOODBYE
Life is leaving me. Slowly… and I can feel it happening. Second by second. The weeks and the months that became years of pain are washing over me and I’m sinking into darkness. I can still make out the walls of my bathroom as I lie on the floor. I’m in the villa on Lake Lugano where I’ve lived for 12 years, but it doesn’t feel real.
The room is big, but somehow it now feels even bigger, as if everything is receding. It’s going away and I don’t care, though once it meant so much to me. We built it ourselves: we put our love and a whole lot of money and sweat into making it a dream home. I try to move, fall heavily back on the floor but don’t notice the pain. This bathroom, like everywhere else in the villa, is light, airy and finished in a grand style. It all looked so elegant, so perfect. This house was going to be our refuge. Now it’s all shaky and hard to make out, a badly-tuned television picture.
The sun streams through the window and even though I can’t feel its warmth, I’m feeling good. I’m wrapped up in cotton wool of my own making. I feel safe. The radio next door drifts through and it sounds distorted, like hearing music underwater. When I was in the bath as a kid I would dunk my head and feel the warmth of the water and a peaceful sensation of the indistinct sounds of the world elsewhere.
I can make out the melody. Celine Dion is singing ‘A New Day Has Come’. I’ve met her many times, and I think about her beauty and that instantly recognisable voice. My own career in music never really took off… now it’s too late. It’s strange how clear my mind is. I’m a bird, no longer frantically flapping but gliding in effortless swoops. I register my senses, the smell of the day’s many cigarettes, the sour, lingering taste of the bottle of Jack Daniel’s which lies empty on its side by the sink. My breath stinks.
How long have I been here now? I can’t tell by the sun whether it’s still morning or afternoon yet. Actually, I don’t know what day it is. It’s probably school time, I decide, because I can’t hear the kids. Where’s my husband Raoul? I don’t know. I honestly don’t care. It won’t be long now.
Two floors down, the cook is preparing something. The sound of the gardener drifts in with birdsong through the open window. We live just outside a village and I think I can also hear the sound of its church bells. Next to me on the floor is the glass which I filled with pills. There were about 25 of them. I swallowed them one at a time and now there’s about five left. The last six or seven were tough; I had to use water to knock them back. They were strong painkillers prescribed for my back pain – with the same effect as Valium.
I’d had the pills for a long time. My left leg is five centimetres longer than the right. As a young girl I’d been diagnosed with scoliosis, which made my spine into an S-shape. I had to wear a medical corset for two years. Every so often I would be almost paralysed with pain and breathing itself became an effort. It felt as if the nerve endings in my back were exposed and someone was grabbing at them. I always had those strong painkillers around for when things got really bad and over the years I’d learned to manage the condition. Now the same pills are going to be used to end my psychological pain.
I think about how the world keeps turning and life in the beautiful surroundings of the lake goes on. All the passion I had for making this place my home has drained away, but I stayed because of the pact I made with myself. I told myself there would be no packing my bags just because things got difficult: I was going to stick it out and have order and stability in my marriage just like my parents had. I’d been determined that I was going to be with my husband until we grew old together. We were going to raise our family here. And I had been very happy to begin with, but what was going to be my own version of paradise had slowly, stealthily, turned into a prison. Everything I once loved, I now hated.
One of the first to discover the charms of Lugano was Charlie Chaplin. Singer Robert Palmer lived and died here. Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky composed on its shores in the shadows of the Alps. It’s almost too pretty, a chocolate-box scene that could seduce anyone.
Our house had been owned by a Swiss baron who was ruined in the casinos back in the 1920s. The building fell into decay until Raoul and I fell in love with it and set to work. We were on the border with Italy where I was doing a lot of TV work. Switzerland was popular with high earners – and it was where Raoul came from. He had to return home and Lugano seemed like a good place to start our life as a married couple. The paparazzi never made it out there and I could escape the stress of my high-maintenance lifestyle. We were secure. You could wander around completely naked if you wanted. Here I could live out my dream of being a normal wife and mother with an ordinary family: I would be Gitte at last.
It wasn’t to be. I should have listened to the voice inside me which was screaming for me to grab the kids and get out of there, but I was determined to make it work and I used everything, all my money, all my energy. Now I had nothing left and I realised that there was no other way out.
I thought our marriage was exactly what I needed, but we haven’t had sex for more than two years. We’ve all heard about cults that brainwash people into doing things they wouldn’t normally do. I didn’t believe that really happened, but now I understand. I can’t bear what I have become and I no longer recognise myself: when I look in the mirror I don’t see smart, strong, independent Gitte. Where is she? I don’t have the strength any more – I’m broken. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I’m on a treadmill fuelled by alcohol – that’s all there is in my life now.
Now I’m sure of what I want: I know I’m doing the right thing. It doesn’t seem selfish to me and I’m not thinking about the kids. Everything makes sense. I haven’t got the resources to plan so there won’t be anything as organised as a suicide note, no instructions for my funeral service, no thought about what should happen with my remains and there’s nothing significant about choosing today to die. It might just as well have been yesterday and it might have come over me tomorrow. Maybe it’s the way the sun is shining through the windows this morning or the quiet drone of activity from the village or the gardener working downstairs. I’m not really sure. I just need peace: I want to smell it, taste it, feel it.
I had considered drowning myself in the lake but the thought of the ice-cold water put me off. I’d heard that death by drowning is the worst of all ways to die. The pills just make me feel light, sleepy. This is the peace I am looking for. I will drift off and never wake up again.
I’m a bit disappointed that it hasn’t happened yet – I thought it would be quicker than this. But now it’s coming. I feel really relaxed and I’m not at all scared. For the first time in a long time there is pain neither in my mind nor my body. I get a strange sensation, something turning in my stomach. I’ve cried so many tears – it feels like I’ve cried every day for years. I’ve become so used to unbearable pain that the sudden absence makes me realise how hard it has been to be me.
No more lies, no more guilt, no more feelings. The world is closing down around me and that reflection I didn’t recognise in the mirror is disappearing as well. I’m smiling, smiling, backing out of the picture. My last thought is of Marilyn Monroe and how she took an overdose. I’ve fallen over again but I
don’t feel it.
CHAPTER 2
COPENHAGEN TO CATWALK
I come from a very small suburb to the north-west of Copenhagen called Rødovre. Pretty middle class but not exactly glamorous. There’s a lake there and if you were Danish, you might pay it a visit on a day out.
My destiny in life was to be a librarian like my mother or maybe a shop assistant. I had a job in a bakery and I wouldn’t have minded staying. I’d have been content to save up for my yearly package holiday and I doubt I’d have dreamed of anything more ambitious than a slightly bigger house or a better car. Everyone would know me for being reliable at work and a good mother to my 2.4 children. The kids would have been good at sports and they’d have had a talent for music which might get them onto X Factor. They’d be popular, the neighbours would remark on how well-behaved they were, they would eventually go to university and they would get good jobs themselves. My script for life wouldn’t have made a blockbuster movie but that’s what should have happened.
But it didn’t. My story was shaped partly by luck and in large part by me. In the alternate reality, little Gitte grew up and never left Denmark and she’s running around after her kids and she’s perfectly satisfied. Even now I still think that I might go back and work in that library or be the neighbourhood baker.
I asked myself why things developed the way they did when I sat down to write my story: I was trying to make sense of some of my darker experiences and I thought that it could all have been so different. Then I became convinced that I didn’t have so much control in what I was doing. You only have one life and it never runs as smoothly as you think it’s going to. It is made up of all these different threads and they have knots which you don’t even see until you step back and really take a good look at yourself. When you’re in the moment you just get yourself past the knots somehow and move on to the next thing. Most of us just don’t have the time to think about our motives. You simply live the life you have with all your mistakes and flashes of genius. Writing about yourself is a really weird thing to do because you get to think about it all properly for the first time.
You Only Get One Life Page 1